Post by: Ivo_B on July 15, 2018, 03:52:21 am
Interesting text:
Color is Power (http://www.robertwalkerphotographer.biz/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Robert-Walker-Color-is-Power-2000.pdf)
extract of the article
...
In 1975, the American photographer Lee Friedlander was invited by the Optica Gallery In Montreal to give a workshop on street photography.
I registered for the course on a whim rather than out of any deep interest. During this period, I was also introduced to the work of the masters of the genre: Eugene Atget,André Kertész, Walker Evans, Robert Frank,William Klein and Gary Wynogrand and as the workshop progressed, my fascination with this form of photography turned Into an obsession.
A few months after the workshop ended, it occurred to me that I should immediately switch to colour. I intuitively felt that the creative possibilities of black and white were being exhausted. I have not taken a black and white picture since. At that time, there were few colour photographers to emulate, but at least I had my limited knowledge of painting to fall back on, so I approached the medium with an abstract sensibility. When I chose a subject to be photographed, I would completely ignore the literal elements and concentrate on balancing colour and form. If I learned anything from my early days as a painter, it was to be able to look at the entire picture plane as an abstraction and not be seduced by the drama of the subject matter.[/i]
Check out his work: Robert Walker (http://robertwalkerphotographer.biz)
Post by: Telecaster on July 15, 2018, 04:46:33 pm
-Dave-
Post by: Rob C on July 17, 2018, 08:09:23 am
Robert Walker is one of the Painter / Photographers who introduced color as an (if not the most) important element in street photography. I find his work inspiring and together with Gruyaert and Eggleston he was a game changer in his era.
Interesting text:
Color is Power (http://www.robertwalkerphotographer.biz/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Robert-Walker-Color-is-Power-2000.pdf)
extract of the article
...
In 1975, the American photographer Lee Friedlander was invited by the Optica Gallery In Montreal to give a workshop on street photography.
I registered for the course on a whim rather than out of any deep interest. During this period, I was also introduced to the work of the masters of the genre: Eugene Atget,André Kertész, Walker Evans, Robert Frank,William Klein and Gary Wynogrand and as the workshop progressed, my fascination with this form of photography turned Into an obsession.
A few months after the workshop ended, it occurred to me that I should immediately switch to colour. I intuitively felt that the creative possibilities of black and white were being exhausted. I have not taken a black and white picture since. At that time, there were few colour photographers to emulate, but at least I had my limited knowledge of painting to fall back on, so I approached the medium with an abstract sensibility. When I chose a subject to be photographed, I would completely ignore the literal elements and concentrate on balancing colour and form. If I learned anything from my early days as a painter, it was to be able to look at the entire picture plane as an abstraction and not be seduced by the drama of the subject matter.[/i]
Check out his work: Robert Walker (http://robertwalkerphotographer.biz)
He does what he says he does on the tin.
Whether or not that has produced great images is another matter. Some are very nice and some horrid. Of course, as with his own statements, this view is based on personal likes and dislikes.
Suggesting b/w has run out of power is almost funny.
You should be the first to tell him so.
Post by: RSL on July 17, 2018, 08:35:49 am
Suggesting b/w has run out of power is almost funny.
Not just funny. It's hilarious. A very large part of the power of photography is in its graphics.
Post by: Ivophoto on July 17, 2018, 12:24:12 pm
Not just funny. It's hilarious. A very large part of the power of photography is in its graphics.
The implementation of color doesn’t excluded graphics.
Post by: Ivophoto on July 17, 2018, 12:36:28 pm
He does what he says he does on the tin.
Whether or not that has produced great images is another matter. Some are very nice and some horrid. Of course, as with his own statements, this view is based on personal likes and dislikes.
Suggesting b/w has run out of power is almost funny.
You should be the first to tell him so.
I don’t think it is a question if b/w was out of power. That is not what he said imo. Enfin,I don’t understand it that way. He said he believed the b/w possibilities where exhausted. I understand he meant: exhausted to do something new, stretching the boundaries of photography. And he probably got a point.
We can elaborate endlessly on the esthetic quality of his work, what I find interesting and useful for me, in my vision of photography, is how he abstracts the purely visual experience above the literal content.
I find this a very defendable approach. Same happens over and over in other art forms.
Post by: Rob C on July 18, 2018, 03:58:15 am
I don’t think it is a question if b/w was out of power. That is not what he said imo. Enfin,I don’t understand it that way. He said he believed the b/w possibilities where exhausted. I understand he meant: exhausted to do something new, stretching the boundaries of photography. And he probably got a point.
We can elaborate endlessly on the esthetic quality of his work, what I find interesting and useful for me, in my vision of photography, is how he abstracts the purely visual experience above the literal content.
I find this a very defendable approach. Same happens over and over in other art forms.
Basically, we (you and I) are both saying the same thing about b&white, though I read his interpretation and use of terminology slightly differently, with the difference that you think exhausted, in the context, means something other than out of power, out of steam, nowhere left to go.
Extracting the purely visual is easy: you simply half-close your mind, keep your eyes just enough out of focus to eliminate detail, and when the colour lumping looks properly weighted, click! The difficult bit is the literal content. That takes more than the simply visual perception of blocks of colour, and forces the requirement of adding interest; in other words, you have to combine two functions, always the stumbling bock.
As you told Russ, the implementation of colour doesn't exclude graphics but equally, neither does the use of balck/white do that; if anything, doing it in black/white is even more of a challenge because the contrasts that create the tonal blocks (from greys) are both less strong and also less visibly obvious to the naked eye. In fact, a lot more difficult to discern, when you realise that a mid-green is the same as a mid-red in the altered b/w range of ultimate contrasts. Guess which appears the more challenging and skilled to catch: the obvious or the not-so-obvious?
Nope, I do not want to change your mind where we have differences, nor should I; I just reserve my slightly different view, as do you.
Rob
Post by: Ivophoto on July 18, 2018, 07:51:30 am
Basically, we (you and I) are both saying the same thing about b&white, though I read his interpretation and use of terminology slightly differently, with the difference that you think exhausted, in the context, means something other than out of power, out of steam, nowhere left to go.
Extracting the purely visual is easy: you simply half-close your mind, keep your eyes just enough out of focus to eliminate detail, and when the colour lumping looks properly weighted, click! The difficult bit is the literal content. That takes more than the simply visual perception of blocks of colour, and forces the requirement of adding interest; in other words, you have to combine two functions, always the stumbling bock.
As you told Russ, the implementation of colour doesn't exclude graphics but equally, neither does the use of balck/white do that; if anything, doing it in black/white is even more of a challenge because the contrasts that create the tonal blocks (from greys) are both less strong and also less visibly obvious to the naked eye. In fact, a lot more difficult to discern, when you realise that a mid-green is the same as a mid-red in the altered b/w range of ultimate contrasts. Guess which appears the more challenging and skilled to catch: the obvious or the not-so-obvious?
Nope, I do not want to change your mind where we have differences, nor should I; I just reserve my slightly different view, as do you.
Rob
No issue with that Rob.
It’s effectively the marriage of color and the b/w toolbox that I find challenging.
It happened in the art movements as well.
From modernism over fauvisme, cubism, conceptual art. Even up to Kitchen Sink and social realism (where Nan Goldin was the photographic exponent) movement.
I hoped to find ground to discuss the art movement in photography.
Therefore I find it not in place to ridiculise or minimize other visual photographic expressions. (What you don’t do btw)
Post by: RSL on July 18, 2018, 10:36:54 am
The implementation of color doesn’t excluded graphics.
No it doesn't. But many photographs in color would be improved a great deal by conversion to B&W to emphasize the power of the graphics. Color often detracts from the graphics. Then there's the problem that HCB pointed out: You can't control the visual position of colors in a photograph. Advancing colors advance whether or not you want them to. Receding colors recede whether or not you want them to. The only place you can control color in photography is in the studio, where you can decide what colors to put where.
Post by: Ivophoto on July 18, 2018, 12:05:09 pm
No it doesn't. But many photographs in color would be improved a great deal by conversion to B&W to emphasize the power of the graphics. Color often detracts from the graphics. Then there's the problem that HCB pointed out: Advancing colors advance whether or not you want them to. Receding colors recede whether or not you want them to. The only place you can control color in photography is in the studio, where you can decide what colors to put where.
Not necessarily. Interception, pre positioning, flattening perspective, incorporation of backgrounds, etc, all ways to play with available colors in the potential scene. Granted it complexifie photography, especially when one wants to go beyond Walkers vision and combine image content with color composition.
Walkers ideas are recognizable. In the classic arts, Impressionism was a counter reaction to the academically realism. Color, shadow, light overruled graphic, lines and details. (And later details came back and so far and so further....)
I’m very impressed how colorists like Gruyaert emphasizes social situations, enforced with a sound balance of color, light and shadow in the image.
It allows to go further in street photography, leave behind the use of maniérisme and express emotion with color. Subdued tones or vibrant colorite are powerful additional composition tools when working in color.
It is not ‘or’ it is ‘and’
It needs additional skill to make and even read color images.
I’m surprised that color photography is still in the dimple of snapshottery.
Post by: RSL on July 18, 2018, 01:13:23 pm
I’m surprised that color photography is still in the dimple of snapshottery.
I'm not surprised. It always will be as far as most people with a camera (or phone) are concerned. Oooh! Wow! Look at the colors in that! As far as I'm concerned, anyone trying to learn photography as an artform should be limited to shooting B&W for the first four years.
Post by: Rob C on July 18, 2018, 05:25:51 pm
I'm not surprised. It always will be as far as most people with a camera (or phone) are concerned. Oooh! Wow! Look at the colors in that! As far as I'm concerned, anyone trying to learn photography as an artform should be limited to shooting B&W for the first four years.
Actually, that's pretty much what happened to me when I got my first pro job. Years printing black/white, learning how to make prints of metal parts look like the parts, which since most of the time they consisted of grey jet engine turbine blades, was not too difficult after a few months of learning to forget what, as an avid am. with his own darkroom, I had imagined I already knew. Then, it was into the colour lab where the learning curve started all over again. There, it was even more critical because accuracy of matching original colours was what informed engineers down the line about what had happened inside flame tubes. Let me see the colour of your burns, dear, and Mummy will make it better!
By that time, I'd had my fill of industry and never looked back after a couple of equally boringly tedious jobs for other photographers. Apart from anything else, I realised that employment as a photographer was on the reward grade of a street cleaner - to be generous to photographers. I resigned, went solo and that was it. The world opened up.
Colour, for me, was almost invariably transparency because of the requirements of the publishing systems. Unlike in my industrial unit, nobody wanted colour print originals - thank God - unless for point-of sales display and exhibition stands, and also unlike today, once you handed over your transparency or print you were done; final step was sending in your invoice and developing a three-month patience system in your head. Thinking digital has made life easier is a friggin' myth: folks appear to work several times as long for perhaps even less return. Nothing was as sweet as typing that bill and going on to the next job - if there was one... that was ever the challenge, not the photography.
However, I think you tune your own visual - if not quite the aesthetic - vision from looking at the work of people you admire for what they can do. They can never be copied, which would be self-defeating anyway, but nonetheless they do mould your appreciation of things visual. I do not believe they teach you anything precise, because photography is not like that, it is far from a precise, chemical science anymore, and with PS the need to know your materials and processes like the back of your hand has gone. Well, for stills at any rate - I know zero about motion.
I really believe that you can only ever be taught how to use equipment. The creative part can not be taught: if you have such a part, you have to develop yourself by yourself, and proof of this for me was that, from never having shot a fashion pic in my life, the transformation to working photographer doing exactly that was without a glitch, and as easy and natural - and without hesitation or fear - as if I'd been shooting women and their clothes all my life. The next step was even more simple: exactly the same mindset but with fewer rags.
Post by: Ivophoto on July 19, 2018, 03:41:38 am
You make a very valid point about the additional workload and required skills in this digital era. Work doesn’t stop with handing over the transparency. The color character of the image is not dictated anymore by Kodak or Fuji. There is a lot of extra work on the photographers plate. (The happy few who can afford a full staff are seldom or bankrupt meanwhile)
I had a few good colleagues/ friends in the business that you described in your last words. All earning a pile of money until internet washed out 90% of the glamour (and not so glamour
) magazine business. Result: bankruptcy Another friend worked for a Dutch mail order company, selling kinky lingerie and battery operated apparel. He was the in house photographer. In an (successfully)attempt to turn around the financial curve they hired a big German marketing company with their own photography division. He was trilled to hear he got a contract for that marketing company. The studio was cramped with broncolor stuff, his working horse became a H’blad and he could not be happier, until he got a visit from the project manager and art director, carrying a binder full of directives how to light out a dildo and how to set up a lingerie scenery, and he better followed that manual. The truth was that those guys knew very well how to do things.
But back on topic, is photography as a technique strong enough to be the main technique for an art evolution (as painting did), or is it merely another technique to contribute to a general art movement?
Rephrase: can photography contains art movement or is photography a tool in art movement?
I suppose it is correct to say portraits, street, landscape is not an art movement but subjects.
Is it possible to do photographic portraits on a impressionist way?
Can we do street on a surrealistic way?
(Not using cheap PS filters)
...
Post by: Rob C on July 19, 2018, 09:02:20 am
The requirement of sound professional knowledge should not be in question. I take that for granted..
You make a very valid point about the additional workload and required skills in this digital era. Work doesn’t stop with handing over the transparency. The color character of the image is not dictated anymore by Kodak or Fuji. There is a lot of extra work on the photographers plate. (The happy few who can afford a full staff are seldom or bankrupt meanwhile)
I had a few good colleagues/ friends in the business that you described in your last words. All earning a pile of money until internet washed out 90% of the glamour (and not so glamour
Another friend worked for a Dutch mail order company, selling kinky lingerie and battery operated apparel. He was the in house photographer. In an (successfully)attempt to turn around the financial curve they hired a big German marketing company with their own photography division. He was trilled to hear he got a contract for that marketing company. The studio was cramped with broncolor stuff, his working horse became a H’blad and he could not be happier, until he got a visit from the project manager and art director, carrying a binder full of directives how to light out a dildo and how to set up a lingerie scenery, and he better followed that manual. The truth was that those guys knew very well how to do things.
But back on topic, is photography as a technique strong enough to be the main technique for an art evolution (as painting did), or is it merely another technique to contribute to a general art movement?
Rephrase: can photography contains art movement or is photography a tool in art movement?
I suppose it is correct to say portraits, street, landscape is not an art movement but subjects.
Is it possible to do photographic portraits on a impressionist way?
Can we do street on a surrealistic way?
(Not using cheap PS filters)
...
Starting at the end: maybe a lot of HC-B's earlier work was surrealism via camera? I get a rising sense of nervous hysteria blending with amusement on looking at photos of middle-aged men in hats peering through holes in fences, or even of folks in mid-flight over puddles behind railway stations. Those pictures are perhaps not really all that much to do with photography per se, but a lot to do with the odd situations that people create for themselves. A certain Monsieur Hulot springs to mind
There might even be an argument for thinking that successful street may not actually depend at all on courageous acts of staring down strange people in the street, but depend more on an observation of the quirks within everyday human behaviour. I think that's something that Seamus Flynn would do rather well. If still on board, show some more, Seamus!
Street photography with an Impressionist touch, in a digital age, must almost essentially depend on filtration of some kind; with paint it was the result of a form of desertion of detail in favour of flavour; the camera - or rather its sensor - is possibly too rigidly "correct" for that. I would imagine Sarah Moon doing it in her early days with ultra-fast film, grain like mothballs, but with sensors? Stripping away content to end up with a solitary figure on a grim street somewhere may appear to pay service to Impressionism, but perhaps it's just closer to minimalism? I don't think we get very far comparing photography with painting or drawing; early photographers wasted a lot of life trying to be what the other, inescapably, already was.
Perhaps rather than an ism, what photography seems to do well, occasionally, is develop flavour-of-the-month fashions such as cross-processing was: visually odd but, for me, ultimately sterile and counterproductive. 60s and 70s fashion photography had a love affair with the 28mm and 35mm lens that, used tight on a Nikon etc. gave slightly elongated heads and figures; for a reason I no longer recall, that struck me as attractive at the time. I guess that what I may be saying is what you already have: photography varies via genre more than by mannerism of presentation.
It seems likely that a lot of the trends in photography - well, the things that appear in galleries, are really the result of a confusion in the mind of the photographer who, by virtue of the pressures and demands for novelty that an art market uses for fuel, finds himself pressured into thinking that photography depends on things other than making photographs very well. I believe that photography, straight, is so powerful a medium in the hands of a skilled photographer, that it needs gimmick like the Titanic an iceberg.
Perhaps St Ansel was a prime example of that. He developed straight photography to a very advanced degree. So did W. Eugene Smith, if you are willing to accept bleaching as a legitimate part of straight photography, which I certainly am. Perhaps what I'm slowly bringing into focus here is that photography depends on soul. Just like music, then, and is too literal a medium to bend too much yet still escape ridicule.
That said, the "bending" of photography as been a staple of advertising for a long time.
Post by: RSL on July 19, 2018, 09:32:17 am
There's another of Henri's quotes I haven't time this morning to dig out, but it goes something like this: "Everything you need to know about (the how-to mechanics of) photography is in the little book that, along with the fine leather case, comes with the camera."
Post by: 32BT on July 19, 2018, 09:49:03 am
Surrealist images is a bit more doubtful. It either is already surreal as a visual scene, or perhaps it could be called surreal when it is a play on perspective, though that usually gets tiresome real quickly...
Post by: RSL on July 19, 2018, 10:08:21 am
Post by: Rob C on July 19, 2018, 11:38:20 am
I believe impressionism is very well possible with just the camera. We see great examples of that right here on LuLa using ICM, John's images come to mind, or when capturing movement, Peter M bicycle image comes to mind.
Surrealist images is a bit more doubtful. It either is already surreal as a visual scene, or perhaps it could be called surreal when it is a play on perspective, though that usually gets tiresome real quickly...
Regarding what shows up here on LuLa: people become stuck in grooves. When you see two shifted camera snaps in sequence, the magic vanishes into boredom. How many streaky lawns or flowers or trees does it take to establish a point, a "style" that unfortunately, is just a mechanical gimmick? I ran the gamut of Vaseline smears (sounds clinical, but wasn't) ND filter and other mechanical games, but in the end, it's the pic that took some thought, some notion of observation or surprise (to me) that brings me pleasure from my own work. Increasingly, the straight shot processed to its ultimate mood, makes me happy. Mood is really a human connection with whatever; without humanity at least looking, all those sunsets and lagoons and mighty waterfalls just are; cold fact or hot one, but remote from emotion. A rock feels nothing. A volcano doesn't even hear itself breath and snort, and has no idea how it stinks.
Surreal for me, feels that it requires the presence of a human, of at least some interplay with living tissue, for if to connect. The M. Hulot factor, if you will. Perpective, as you say, really boils down to equipment once more, and becomes so what?
Rob
Post by: Ivophoto on July 19, 2018, 12:52:58 pm
Maybe there is more.
Regarding what shows up here on LuLa: people become stuck in grooves. When you see two shifted camera snaps in sequence, the magic vanishes into boredom. How many streaky lawns or flowers or trees does it take to establish a point, a "style" that unfortunately, is just a mechanical gimmick? I ran the gamut of Vaseline smears (sounds clinical, but wasn't) ND filter and other mechanical games, but in the end, it's the pic that took some thought, some notion of observation or surprise (to me) that brings me pleasure from my own work. Increasingly, the straight shot processed to its ultimate mood, makes me happy. Mood is really a human connection with whatever; without humanity at least looking, all those sunsets and lagoons and mighty waterfalls just are; cold fact or hot one, but remote from emotion. A rock feels nothing. A volcano doesn't even hear itself breath and snort, and has no idea how it stinks.
Surreal for me, feels that it requires the presence of a human, of at least some interplay with living tissue, for if to connect. The M. Hulot factor, if you will. Perpective, as you say, really boils down to equipment once more, and becomes so what?
Rob
P.E.: Human kind left sufficient footprint to be present, even while not there. This makes it possible to smell the flesh, even when it is not in the frame.
Absence of the obvious...
Finding effective absence of human trace is a real challenge, at least, here in west Europe. This could be a nice subject of a series or even the dogma of an ism.
The nohumanism.
We start a sub forum and get upset by all those rascals posting images not compliant to the dogma.
I guess you point quit accurate to the photographic caveats, technology is very dominant in the result (the image) and the process to create ‘easy mood’ is dominantly dictated by the adobe / Nikon / Fujifilm / Canon or even Nick/Google engineers.
I find converting to B/W a bit in the same corner.
Post by: 32BT on July 19, 2018, 01:55:03 pm
Another form of impressionism imo is the glass reflection technique that Rob seems to like both in production and consumption. I like it very much for its ability to create a layered, almost abstract impression just like a collage is a layered, abstract impression. But granted, its power is likely in the human factor that can be included.
Post by: 32BT on July 19, 2018, 02:22:19 pm
Before you set your mind too irreversably about HCB and surrealism, Oscar, check this: http://erickimphotography.com/blog/2017/12/25/henri-cartier-bresson-was-a-master-surrealist-street-photographer/
I'm obviously not going to argue with the master ;-)
Though i maintain that these scenes are either not surreal or are already surreal irl. The fact that there is some remarkable similarity with a surreal painting doesn't make a captured scene surreal. Something in the image much defy or transcent reality. With photography that is necessarily already in the scene or some form of perspective distortion.
Ivo's image of the girl on the beach is surrealism, but already available to viewers irl.
Post by: Telecaster on July 19, 2018, 04:10:59 pm
A good deal of what falls into the "street" category has, for me, an off-putting undercurrent of narcissism. Street photographers with an empathetic sense of humor, Helen Levitt for instance, are exceptions. Humans are but a tiny part of the world.
-Dave-
Post by: Rob C on July 19, 2018, 05:34:28 pm
Maybe there is more.
P.E.: Human kind left sufficient footprint to be present, even while not there. This makes it possible to smell the flesh, even when it is not in the frame.
Absence of the obvious...
Finding effective absence of human trace is a real challenge, at least, here in west Europe. This could be a nice subject of a series or even the dogma of an ism.
The nohumanism.
We start a sub forum and get upset by all those rascals posting images not compliant to the dogma.
I guess you point quit accurate to the photographic caveats, technology is very dominant in the result (the image) and the process to create ‘easy mood’ is dominantly dictated by the adobe / Nikon / Fujifilm / Canon or even Nick/Google engineers.
I find converting to B/W a bit in the same corner.
Converting to black/white.
You see, I started in black/white and much of my work used to be in it too; it became the natural go-to option because of the film I loaded into the camera. Today, it still is my natural option and I believe that pretty much every shot I make with my digis is converted to black/white almost immediately it gets numbered and I start to look at it on the monitor as what it has become, and I mean prior to making if more than it's out-of-camera self - as distinct from what it was or still is in reality.
So for me, the artificiality or conversion step that disturbs your willingness to accept, is replaced instead, in my case, by the colour stored in the file. You might say: well then, buy a mono Leica. No, because I can neither afford to spend my money on things like that, nor does it let me use the internal filters that normal digital files allow. It would be a pointless sacrifice both ways. Anyhow, I prefer the way an slr functions. I understand its generic mindset very well.
The human traces. Try the local beaches during the tourist season when the people have mostly gone away to clean up and go eat. Not a pretty sight, and hardly different, one beach from another. I guess that Wabi-Sabi offers the best chances for second-stage presence, but as you suggested, hard to find emptiness anywhere unless you take up landscape, hiking and climbing up dangerous things like mountains. Include me out, as he said. Or exclude me in, it just struck me, could also make the same sort of logic.
Post by: Ivophoto on July 20, 2018, 01:04:12 pm
Converting to black/white.
You see, I started in black/white and much of my work used to be in it too; it became the natural go-to option because of the film I loaded into the camera. Today, it still is my natural option and I believe that pretty much every shot I make with my digis is converted to black/white almost immediately it gets numbered and I start to look at it on the monitor as what it has become, and I mean prior to making if more than it's out-of-camera self - as distinct from what it was or still is in reality.
So for me, the artificiality or conversion step that disturbs your willingness to accept, is replaced instead, in my case, by the colour stored in the file. You might say: well then, buy a mono Leica. No, because I can neither afford to spend my money on things like that, nor does it let me use the internal filters that normal digital files allow. It would be a pointless sacrifice both ways. Anyhow, I prefer the way an slr functions. I understand its generic mindset very well.
The human traces. Try the local beaches during the tourist season when the people have mostly gone away to clean up and go eat. Not a pretty sight, and hardly different, one beach from another. I guess that Wabi-Sabi offers the best chances for second-stage presence, but as you suggested, hard to find emptiness anywhere unless you take up landscape, hiking and climbing up dangerous things like mountains. Include me out, as he said. Or exclude me in, it just struck me, could also make the same sort of logic.
Working in B/W is very fine, Rob, in whatever workflow, be it avoiding color or removing color.
I can imagine you’re pre visualization is in B/W.
I come out the same corner. I consumed Trix in wholesale quantities. I love working with a 2push trix in my Mamiya, sadly, stupid me, I sold my LPL 4*5 enlarger, and the hybrid flow is just not it.....
Post by: Rob C on July 20, 2018, 04:01:55 pm
Working in B/W is very fine, Rob, in whatever workflow, be it avoiding color or removing color.
I can imagine you’re pre visualization is in B/W.
I come out the same corner. I consumed Trix in wholesale quantities. I love working with a 2push trix in my Mamiya, sadly, stupid me, I sold my LPL 4*5 enlarger, and the hybrid flow is just not it.....
Previsualization. Now there's a thing. You know, to be brutally honest with myself, I can't really claim that much of it in anything I do. I guess I react, most of the time, unless as with my recent power station trip, where I really did begin the adventure with a very clear idea of what I wanted from the place; so, in that instance, it was like just another assignment, rather than my usual fairly undirected wandering about.
However, that aimless attitude has become incapable of motivating me these days; maybe it's the heat, maybe not; whatever it is, I'm back where I was some years ago, unwilling to take the camera out unless I have had an idea first. That's probably more to do with over-familiarity than much else, but it has resulted in the next (current) dry photographic spell. Also, there is no escaping that bad weather has far more natural appeal that boring blue sky, and one or two clouds. That was great for a certain market, but for my own desires today - nope.
Post by: Ivophoto on July 21, 2018, 11:32:12 am
Pr
However, that aimless attitude has become incapable of motivating me these days; maybe it's the heat, maybe not; whatever it is, I'm back where I was some years ago, unwilling to take the camera out unless I have had an idea first. That's probably more to do with over-familiarity than much else, but it has resulted in the next (current) dry photographic spell. Also, there is no escaping that bad weather has far more natural appeal that boring blue sky, and one or two clouds. That was great for a certain market, but for my own desires today - nope.
I know the feeling. I started to make series to find a way out of this kind of photographer block. Unpretentious subjects, bolt documentary, Narrative assembly of pictures or simple little fictional stories.
I’ll try to upload such a story later today.
Post by: Ivo_B on July 28, 2018, 08:16:58 am
I know the feeling. I started to make series to find a way out of this kind of photographer block. Unpretentious subjects, bolt documentary, Narrative assembly of pictures or simple little fictional stories.
I’ll try to upload such a story later today.
I started a topic in the coffee corner: Photographers Block (http://forum.luminous-landscape.com/index.php?topic=126078.0)
A shot for a photocomic I made in an attempt to kill my photographers block.
Post by: Rob C on July 28, 2018, 11:07:39 am
Rob